User blog:PeaVZ108/PeaVZ's Review on LazyTown!
Hi guys! PeaVZ here, with a completely different type of blog. Inspired by CITRON's Cartoon Calamaties and Creeper's Reviews, I decided to do a list of good and bad things about this show named Lazy Town. I watched all of its episodes, all four seasons excluding Lazy Town Extra!, within a month or two. I used to say that I love the show by itself. Now I'll take it back, as I currently find it a rather average kid's show. I'll give a Top 9 ranking of my favourite characters. Without further ado, here we go! The good things. Of course, you have to start everything the positive way. *'The Humor': It's hard to laugh at several moments, especially when they become memes on the Internet. My favourite character is Robbie Rotten, and I could never hold my laughter especially during his final moments after the usual "Bing Bang" song. Still, you have to admit the other characters have had their savage and humorous moments. *'The Show's Creator: '''It's Magnus Scheving himself! I placed this under the good things, mostly because he made a good show out of a few puppets, props and humans. But the other reason is, he plays Sportacus, the "Number 10" superhero or in this case "slightly-above average hero". And his voice though, I have one word for it: '''EPIC. '''One thing not to miss out about him is his incredible stunts. *'The Songs: Every episode of Lazy Town has at least two songs, not including the introductory song: One, a unique song that might be fitting the theme of the episode. Two, the Bing Bang song, which always plays at the end of each episode. Although certain episodes have a re-used song, I won't push the blame to Mr. Sportacus nor any of the behind-the-scenes people. Most of the songs are pretty catchy, even with some like "We are Number One!", "You are a Pirate" and "Cooking By the Book" becoming memes. However, there's something bad about the songs that I find as well that I will cover under the bad things. *'Robbie Rotten: '''Like I said under "The Humor", Robbie Rotten is my favourite character, which is already a spoiler alert considering that I'm doing a ranking of my favourite characters at the bottom. Robbie is partially the reason why most people that watch Lazy Town love Lazy Town. He's humorous and a well-liked villain who plans to make Lazy Town lazy again. Oh, and did I mention that Robbie's actor is rather spot on? OH! And Robbie made "We are Number One!" which became a popular meme before his actor developed cancer and recovered from it, making him truly "number one". My favourite quotes of his include, "FOREVER!!!" and "It's disguise time!". *'The Hidden Irony: 'The irony is that, despite Robbie wanting to make everyone lazy again, his schemes involve a lot of physical activity, making him one of the most active residents of Lazy Town. Very clever! Well played, Mr. Sportacus. *'The Airship: 'Oh man, I love Sportacus's airship design, although it's mostly white. Who wouldn't want to own that one of a kind of an airship? Also, throughout the seasons, the airship seems to become more technologically advanced, with more gadgets and sports-related stuff! *'Occasionally Guest Characters: 'Not only is this necessary, but it's also a fun addition. Enough said. *'The Disney-Like Animation: 'Specifically for "Once Upon a Time". For once, the puppet characters Ziggy and Stingy move about normally like Stephanie, Sportacus and Robbie. The animation looks great! I wish Lazy Town could do animated versions of their episodes. The bad things. Now to the things that really put me off. The bad things are usually what I can elaborate more about. *'The Concept of Puppetry: 'Sure, it might be because they can't find more human actors, but do they really have to go as far as using PUPPETS? There are DOUBLE the number of puppet characters as human characters! Not to mention, the show even treats them as humans, as neither Stephanie, Sportacus nor Robbie ever calls or even refers to the other characters as puppets. And because of that, they portray Stephanie to be a great dancer while the other kids suck at it apparently. Even in the "Bing Bang" song, only Stephanie and Sportacus are dancing! The puppets are also awkward in terms of movement, and you can sometimes see the lines the puppeteers use to control the puppets. Oh, and do you know that Stephanie, Sportacus and Robbie have appeared in all episodes of all seasons? *'The Small Population: 'How does a mayor run a town with only NINE residents (including the mayor himself)? This has never been explained in any episode at all, and it's also the main reason why Mayor Meanswell and Bessie Busybody basically have every job one could possibly be! A mayor posing as a mayor, teacher, banker, salesman, chef and more is just so wrong! What really makes me disappointed is that there are apparently more kids living in Lazy Town than adults! Go ahead and count them, you'll see. Not even a single parent of any kid ever appears, although Stingy mentions his father on occasion. Where are those parents?! *'The Lack of the Art of Creativity: 'The structure of most episodes is basically very similar: Robbie gets annoyed by kids playing, sports candy and/or Sportacus. Robbie wears a disguise in an attempt to make everyone lazy again, and everyone falls for his disguise, and something goes wrong. Sportacus saves the day and Robbie's disguise gets revealed, and the usual simultaneous "Robbie Rotten!!!" comes after that. Last but not least, '''BING-BANG-DIGGA-RIGGA-DANG!!! '''Sure, certain episodes have a different structure altogether, but that is rarely the case in my opinion. Those certain episodes are mostly involving races, as in racing. *'The Apparent Dumbness: '''I'm pretty sure it's obvious, considering that everyone falls for Robbie's disguises '''EVERY SINGLE TIME WITHOUT FAIL! There was never an episode, which I hope would have been aired, that the kids immediately suspect Robbie in a disguise, although there is a theory that Sportacus might have done that. Sure, the kids might think the "disguised characters" might be more residents in Lazy Town that they do not know about, but they have seen Robbie's disguise getting revealed almost every single time! I mean, in real life, who wouldn't suspect the same person in a new disguise after he or she has fallen for the same ol' trick like after 100 times? Besides, the kids should've known that Robbie is the only one who would get rid of sports-related stuff, yet they do not even give a freakin' thought about that when Robbie in a disguise executes his schemes! I actually had hoped that Pixel might be the smartest among the kids, given his background of inventing and electronic gadgets. After all, he's a gizmo guy like he mentioned in his song "Gizmo Guy". But no, he's just as dumb. He could've just like invented a gadget which can instantly identify Robbie in a disguise. After all, he has invented many gadgets that can even alter reality itself! And it's not just the kids who are dumb, this can be related to Mayor Meanswell and Bessie as well. In "Sportafake", the Mayor and the kids see the fake Sportacus or Robbie (because we all know it's a disguise at this point, but the other characters are just too dumb to know) acting rather awkwardly, way differently from the real Sportacus. I mean, they should have figured it out right away, especially when the fake Sportacus starts bringing them junk food! In "Dr. Rottenstein", the Mayor gives junk food to the "sick" kids just because the "doctor" says so. Given his apparent old age, he should've known by his childhood that junk food is bad! With such dumbness, I wonder how he even became mayor in the first place. The amount of dumbness in general...it's just, it's just...Really gets on my nerves. Looks like Sportacus might actually be the only smart Lazy Town resident after all. Probably the worst point of the entire show. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!! *'Over-Reliance on Sportacus: '''Sure, the kids might have pretended to fight when roleplaying as pirates, musketeers and more. However, when Robbie threatens or tries to harm them, they couldn't even try to fight back, despite outnumbering him. After all, their individual strengths alone could be about as similar as Robbie himself, who is also physically weak! Also, when Stephanie tries to save another person, she mostly doesn't save the person but rather join the person in his or her trouble, forcing Sportacus to end up saving even more people than he should! That is just so wrong! *'Being Too Good Apparently: I don't understand why even after the kids go through so many troubles with Robbie, they will still act friendly towards him if he's not wearing a disguise! I would've added this under "The Apparent Dumbness" but since that section is long, I thought, "Hey, I'd might as well do it in another section!". Even though Robbie is my favourite character, I still don't understand why Robbie doesn't get punished by the mayor or the kids even after his schemes fail or his disguise gets revealed. Not to mention, Sportacus even saves him when Robbie himself is in trouble! First of all, Robbie hates being saved by Sportacus. Secondly, Robbie is the one who is constantly causing the trouble, and hence deserves his fate. Shouldn't Sportacus be aware of this? Not trying to be mean, but yeah. I had to point this out as a bad thing. *'The Songs: '''I did say songs will re-appear here. Now if you must know, songs are what make Lazy Town...well, Lazy Town. But I believe the concept of songs might be used a little too much, especially the first season. Sure, the songs might be catchy and they certainly have a different taste in later seasons, but in the first season, there have been songs that were re-used. In fact, there is even an episode that uses mostly songs which have already been used. I can imagine the following discussion among Mr. Sportacus and the other behind-the-scenes people. :: Magnus: We're out of ideas for our next LazyTown episode. Anyone has any ideas? :: Random BTS Person: I know! Let's re-use all the songs we have so far and put them together as an episode! :: Magnus: Good idea! Let's do it! *'The Poor Continuity: 'Although the episodes do not continue from one another, this is something I still want to point out. For example, even though Pixel knows about programming and inventing, he's still learning stuff like ABC's and basic math! I mean, seriously? There was one episode which Stephanie aced a math test, even though Robbie disguised as a student used her paper to claim that he aced the test. I mean, Pixel should've aced it as well! How else would he have known how to program? Programming does require advanced mathematical skills, and Pixel should know that! Another character with poor continuity is Stingy, as he has stopped being stingy after the first season. Since the second season, "mine" has been used less in his speech. Even he himself has become less selfish, as he stops trying to possess the things he see. Not just the characters, but the events. As in the order of events. I won't point them out as there are a whole bunch of continuity errors. *'The Defiance of Logic: 'Let me ask you something. In "Pixelspix", how did Robbie get his cannon which is bigger than himself into Pixel's website? And in "Once Upon a Time", how did Robbie bring in a bull dozer? He didn't scan those with him when he jumped into the different dimensions, right? That's defying logic right there, which of course the show does a lot. *'The New Stephanie: 'If you watched all four seasons, you should have noticed that Stephanie has TWO human actors! Julianna Rose Mauriello for the first two seasons, and Chloe Lang for the next two seasons. Honestly, I find Julianna to be a better actor for Stephanie than Chloe. The introductory song has been reduced by half since the third season, mostly because of this change, as it wouldn't make sense if the first Stephanie has been featured in the intro while the episode features the second Stephanie. Given the huge gap between the second and third season, it should be obvious why the actor has been changed. But it just doesn't feel right without Julianna. *'The End of Lazy Town: 'To haters, this is a good thing. But I love Lazy Town, but not wanting Lazy Town to end is not why I placed this as a bad thing. The last episode ever is "Mystery of the Pyramid". But the episode never explains anything about the end to the show itself, which really ticks me off, considering that it is indeed the last episode. *'The Ships: '''The only bad thing about Lazy Town that is not about the show. In fact, it's about the Internet. OTP ships include Sportacus x Stephanie, Sportacus X Robbie and Pixel X Stephanie. We all know that those ships won't work, yet the fandom still does that. And it's just...I shall summarise this in one word: '''CRINGE. Top 9 Characters of Lazy Town Now, you're probably thinking why this isn't a top ten. It's because there are only a total of 9 recurring characters of the show: 6 puppets and 3 humans. I would've made a joke on how I'll put Sportacus as "Number 10" if only they added another recurring character! I won't explain in detail though. #9: Bessie Busybody: MILFORD!!! #8: Mayor Meanswell: Sorry, Ms. Busybody! But I'm ahead of you! #7: Ziggy: I want candy! (Insert Hops song here.) #6: Trixie: BOO!!! I took sixth place, get rekt, Ziggy! #5: Pixel: Initializing the Rank-Analyser 6000! I'm in 5th place! #4: Stephanie: BING-BANG-DIGGA-RIGGA-DANG! #3: Stingy: The third spot is MINE! #2: Sportacus: Someone's in trouble! #1: Robbie Rotten: 'WE ARE NUMBER ONE!!! ' FINAL SCORE With more bad things than good things, I would have rated the show about 5.5/10. But because of Robbie Rotten, I'll rate it 6.5/10 instead. And that's all folks! Let me know what you think! Category:Blog posts